Velvet
by Machaira
Summary: This story is told from Evey's point of view, as she writes out what she thinks about the man who changed her life.


How do you fall in love with a man who is determined to die? Wouldn't the thought of a lifetime of painful memories be too much? An unfulfilled future, wondering what could have been – the heart-wrenching sickness that would accompany each morning when you woke up and realized the person you loved more than anything in this world was gone and was never coming back. Would you want that? The answer is simple. No. You wouldn't fall in love. You would guard your heart. Keep it locked up, secure. Safe. Untouched. The sweet smell would not tempt you, no matter how good it seemed. No matter how natural or how safe it appeared to be. You would move on with your life and find someone else, someone permanent, with whom you would spend the rest of your life. You would be smarter than me.

It was not love at first sight. In fact, I never truly saw him in the superficial sense. But by not seeing him, I uncovered what he truly was. That was far more potent. He always wore the same thing: black. He always had a mask on to cover his face. He said his face and body were burned beyond recognition in a fire long ago. He didn't want to frighten me – it was too horrific, he said. The past was the past and it shouldn't be brought up again. I knew it was painful for him to bring it up, so I didn't pester him about it. But I didn't care about the burns. I wouldn't have cared if he didn't have a scrap of skin left on him. It wasn't his appearance that mattered. People always say that, but with him, that was the whole point of who he was. That there was more than the exterior, surface level. Things were more than they appeared to be. He embodied more than simply an outer shell, which was damaged. I saw his hands once. The flesh was pink and red, shrunken and disintegrated. It looked terribly painful. I couldn't believe they were his hands at first. I thought they were potholders or another pair of gloves. How naïve I was. It was the only bare skin of him I ever saw. One night, while he was sleeping, I crept into his room to try to see what his face looked like. It was dark and he was turned away from me, the mask hanging on a notch over his mirror. I didn't make it that much farther past the doorway. I knew I was going about it wrong. If he wanted to show me, he would on his own time. He never did. So I never looked for myself.

Physical appearance is meaningless if there is nothing beneath the bones or flesh that make up our skin If there is nothing else, then it's like eating a rich dessert: delicious and fulfilling at first, but regrettable an hour later. Or a flower that will wither after two weeks: lovely at first, but in the end, forgettable. But when I met him, it wasn't even his appearance that I first encountered. It was his voice. A voice I had never heard before, nor will I ever hear again. It was like something out of a movie, or a story. It was like a narrator's voice: rich and full, but with a hint of darkness around the edges. It didn't seem real. But nothing about that night seemed real. I was so scared. I had suddenly come to terms with the fact that those men were going to rape me and then kill me. I was completely petrified from fear. But by some divine providence, he had arrived in my nightmare and his voice had broken through the screams of cold, unadulterated fear that escaped my lungs. Curiously though, he had not yelled. He never yelled at me. Not once, though I certainly yelled at him.

He had saved me, and my former self would have argued that I was merely drawn to the romantic gesture. Chivalry is dead, so they say. But when I felt the smooth leather of his gloved hand as he reached out to help me off the ground, I knew that there was more than just chivalry. The action was only the outward expression of the mind that dwelled beneath. A mind that had deemed myself worthy to be given a glimpse inside it. And how could I not love a mind like his?

I do not know the exact moment I knew I had fallen in love with the whole man. But I know I loved the voice immediately. It never grew old. I never tired of hearing it, even when I was most angry with him. His voice always found a way to prove his point, no matter how much I didn't want to hear it. I would often dream and hear his voice somewhere in the distance. It made me ache to wake up, to find the source and be close to it again. I still dream of his voice. It is fainter now, but I still hear it in the background, powerful, but gentle. Just like he was.

He loved words. Words were the building blocks of ideas, which were more powerful than weapons, he said. His whole house was like a shrine to these words. Books lined his walls from top to bottom. All kinds of books. I tried to go through a stack in the room where I had been sleeping, but I gave up after 30 minutes. There were so many. Thousands, perhaps. And they were all a part of him. He had rescued them from the dark abyss of censorship. He had kept them alive. They were like his children, almost. He knew them cover to cover and he loved them. He had favorites, of course. He loved Shakespeare, like I did. And when he would recite passages from my favorite plays, oh god. How could I have avoided the inevitable? The words were like music of a concerto composed only for me. An intimate embrace with every note and key. Every breath was like a trembling touch, every syllable a caress. His voice was the first part I loved about him. And I resisted these feelings. I tried at least. I thought myself an independent and free woman. But I was very much afraid, back then. I was afraid of the truth: that all the words he was saying, whether I liked them or not, were like seeds being planted in my heart, firmly taking root. Almost like weeds. Unstoppable. But lovely even so.

Words made up music as well as ideas, so of course he loved music as well. I awoke one morning at his home to hear him singing softly while he cooked me breakfast. It was Somewhere Over the Rainbow, sung by Eva Cassidy. His singing wasn't anything amazing, but it was passionate. I shivered when I first heard it. I was afraid to walk in the kitchen. I didn't want it to stop. What came over me so quickly? Why couldn't control those feelings? I should have been smarter. I should have been rational. But it was still my choice. I made the decision to know him more.

When I was little, I didn't have a lot of ideas of what the man I would love would be like. My life was so chaotic for a time. And after my entire family was taken away from me, I shut down my emotions. I did this to survive. I also kept my opinions mild and under the radar. I respected authority and did what I was told. I didn't want to lose anything else. I was so afraid. I had boyfriends during this time, but they were all short term. I never wanted to give them too much, in case it might all be taken away again. I focused on my studies and planned ahead for my career: to eventually act. It was my passion. I never would have guessed my life would have changed so much after meeting him. There were times where I couldn't stand him. Despised him, in fact. He was so blunt. You could not ignore him. His ideas and opinions were bold and blatant. He didn't water things down. He didn't try to soften the blow. And I hated that. He had something I didn't: the ability to follow through on his beliefs. I wanted to cling to safety and the known. He never wanted to let me do either. He was always asking questions, always getting me to think why I thought the way I did. That got exhausting. I never thought I'd want to be with someone who was so different from me, but it turned out that we had more in common than I ever realized. And he spoke truth. It had just been so long since I had heard it. If only… I had realized it sooner. I would have had more time with him.

I told myself to forget it, to ignore him, to put him out of my mind. But I couldn't. Though he was unconventional in his thinking, he was never cruel. He was firm, but kind. He felt hate and vengeance towards those who had wronged him, but he never claimed to be a saint and I never treated him as such. And even so, he didn't take life too seriously. Humor is so hard to find these days. Everyone is so concerned about getting their plans laid out or getting their life in order that they forget how absurd life can be. He loved acting out parts of his favorite movies. I would watch him from the hall, amused. He didn't know I was there for the longest time because he was so engrossed in the scene he was performing. One time he was reenacting a scene from the Count of Monte Cristo that involved fencing with an armored statue. When he caught me watching, he looked like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. I could imagine his look of surprise and embarrassment underneath the mask and I struggled to keep from laughing.

There are many different kinds of love, but the one thing that is true about all types is that it cannot happen without your heart opening up and allowing it to be shared with another person. He saw me at my highest and lowest times – when I was most weak and when I was most strong. I didn't like how close I was to this man and how much he knew of me. I knew so little about him. He was still determined to go about his way, secretive and behind a mask. He had his goals and his ideals. I was a welcome addition to his life, but only as a bystander. I only figured this because he never tried to touch me. He never tried to woo me or anything like that. He was a very singular man. He had his plans and I was not a part of them. They involved retribution, revenge and eventually death, but not me. But I did not ask to get involved with him. It was all because of that stupid night. That stupid voice. I had to know more and now, this was what awaited me. Perfect. Just lovely. That was as much as I could take. It was time for me to go. I had to leave. What was the point?

Touch. It was the final sense that confirmed that I was indeed in love with him. The morning I left, I saw him by his most favorite thing in his house: the Wurlitzer. He played a song and just stood there, motionless. I watched him for a moment before I finally spoke.

"V," I said. That was his name. The only name I knew for him. He never told me anything else. I'm not even sure he knew anything else other than this name. Must have been a bad fire. "I'm leaving."

"There are 872 songs on here," he said. "I've listened to them all but I've never danced to any of them."

"Did you hear me?" I said, a little annoyed. I thought he was deliberately ignoring me.

"Yes," he said as he turned around to face me. The sadness in his voice was apparent. I hesitated, my stomach turning slightly. But no, I had to go. I couldn't bear any more of this. "Well," he said. "You won't find any more locked doors here…"

So that was it, then. As I turned to walk out, he stopped me again.

"Evey," he said. I loved when he said my name. "May I ask you something?"

I nodded, making sure I kept my resolve. I didn't like how his voice was sounding. It was much too soft and humble. He sounded hurt, but what could I do? Honestly, it was he who drove me away. He had his precious goals to fulfill.

"If I had one wish," he said. "I would wish to see you again, if only once… before the 5th."

My stomach felt funny again, but I kept my head up and showed no emotion. I didn't have the benefit of a mask. So I would force myself to act as though I had one. "All right," I heard myself saying.

"Thank you," he said.

And then I was gone, as quickly as I could. As I walked down the street, away from the place that had been both my cage and my home for some time, I couldn't stop thinking about what he had said about dancing. What a strange thing to bring up. Why would dancing be important right then? But later I thought about it and it became perfectly clear. Dancing is one of the oldest forms of communication and one of the closest forms of intimacy. We all take it for granted: in school plays, dances and wedding receptions. It's always there, but we don't think about what it truly means. I had no idea what kind of childhood and adolescence V had, but I knew he had been alone for some time. Perhaps he had been an only child. Had he many friends growing up? Was he always a little bit strange, always a little bit out in sync with the rest of the crowd, able to mingle and socialize with the rest of them but never able to find a kindred spirit? I wondered what that might be like. Of course, I had no idea if this was how he grew up, but he had made it clear to me as I was leaving that he wanted to dance with someone. And not just anyone. He wanted to dance with me. He hadn't tried to dance alone to the music. He wanted to savor it. To share it with someone. To be close to them. I realized that him telling me that he had not danced to any of those songs was his way of saying that he wanted me.

As promised, I showed up before the 5th to see him again. One last time. At this point I had surrendered to the inevitable: that he was going to risk his life and quite possibly die for the sake of his ideals. I was fine with it. I would have to be. I showed up at his home and crept over to the Wurlitzer when I saw he was not in the living room. I selected the song that I had remembered hearing when he first showed me the Shadow Gallery. I heard him come out to the living room not long after.

"I miss this song," I said, my chest tightening as each step he took accelerated my heartbeats. I closed my eyes and imagined his hands, completely burned and damaged, wrapping around my shoulders and pulling me tightly to his chest. But his words embraced me before his arms did. I will never forget the way his voice sounded when he spoke those first words to me.

"I didn't think you'd come," he said.

As always, he was controlled, but the smallest quiver came through at the end, and I wanted to run to him. But I kept my composure. I was a strong, assured woman now. This time for real. "I said I would," I said, opening my eyes.

"You look well," he said somewhat awkwardly, and I smiled, knowing of course that I did. I was pleased that this could put him momentarily off his guard.

"Thank you," I said.

We exchanged other pleasantries. Stalling time. Waiting for the other to make the next move. V did. He stepped closer to me and extended his hand.

"I have a gift for you, Evey," he said. "But before I give it to you, I want to ask you something. Would you… dance with me?"

I could barely contain my smile. "Now? On the eve of your revolution?"

"Ah, a revolution without dancing is a revolution not worth having," he said.

I smiled widely this time. There was the humor I could not resist. When I took his hand, it felt perfectly natural. All the feelings I had been trying to suppress. All the anxiety. All the doubt. Gone. I could feel him tense slightly under my touch, and though I could not see through his mask, I knew that he didn't take his eyes off me for a second. We moved effortlessly, with no direction or skill, really. It was just two people: two souls who were connected and in tune with one another. I loved him so much. And more than anything, I wanted him to know this. No matter what was going to happen. I didn't care that I might never see him again after this. I only wanted him to know that he was loved and it was only me who could give him the love he deserved. Only I knew him best. And yet, I didn't.

"I don't even know what you really look like," I remember saying as my hands automatically went up to his mask. I wanted to kiss him so badly. I didn't care what I would see under there. As he also reached up for my arms to stop me, my hands brushed the back of his neck, where I felt a small patch of flesh that was not covered with the mask and wig. I felt thin, sparse strands of hair that were so soft. Like velvet. Or like the tuffs of dandelion seeds, just before they're blown off the bulb. So tiny and fragile. I also remember feeling the skin underneath. It was rough and uneven. I heard a small gasp escape his lips as he felt my fingers graze him in that tiny instant. He breathed in deeply and took both my hands, lowering them away from the mask.

"Evey, please," he said. His voice was pained, full of longing. "There is a face beneath this mask, but it's not me. I'm no more that face than I am the muscles beneath it or the bones beneath them."

I was disappointed. Couldn't he trust me? I wouldn't turn away from him, not after all we had been through together. And he had seen me when I was stripped of everything but my life. Couldn't I have the same pleasure? But no, it was not my gift to take. It was not my choice to lift up the mask.

"I understand," I said finally. The disappointment was evident in my voice.

"Thank you," he said, as though a great weight had been lifted off him.

We danced for a little while longer and then I moved in closer.

"Now you've danced to one of your songs, V," I said. "But everyone should get the chance to slow dance." I scooted up closer to him, wrapping my left arm up his back and curling my hand over his shoulder so that our bodies were touching and my face was almost resting against his mask. He followed my initiative by moving his right hand up my back so he could steady me. Everything was heightened now. I was used to picking up his body movements because I could not see his facial expressions, but with him so close everything was magnified. I could hear his slow, labored breathing and the steady, rising beats of his heart against his chest

"I confess," he said. I heard him swallowing hard. "I don't know much of this form of dancing. I've only seen it in a few movies."

"Oh yeah?" I said, smirking. "Well then you should know that it's very easy and laid back. The emphasis is placed on conversation. Usually the movie director tries to sneak in a love confession between the leading man and lady, so as to appease the audience. That's the Hollywood version, anyway."

"Yes that seems like something straight out of the land of celluloid," he said. I felt his hand squeeze my right hand softly. I smiled and rested my head against his shoulder.

"V?" I said.

"Yes, Evey," he said.

"You have a beautiful voice," I said. "Did you know that?"

"Do I?" he said. "I never gave it much thought."

"You do," I said. "I've never heard anything like it. You should have been a stage actor."

"Mm…" he said. "But if I had somehow made it to that profession, I would never have met you. And I don't like the idea of that."

My heart raced. "We might have met," I said. "It was my goal, you know, to become an actress."

"I know," he said, his voice low. I could feel the vibrations in his chest against mine. "All the other would-be leading ladies would be terribly jealous of you."

"We could have been introduced, possibly," I said. "We might have even been cast in a play together."

"Perhaps," he said. "But then I'd have to compete with all those dashing young male actors, with their strapping good looks and commanding stage presence."

"I would have noticed you," I said. "Your voice alone has more passion than any of those fools would have in their entire being." I felt him tense again and he stopped swaying for a second.

"Evey," he said. His voice was pained again.

"What?" I said, looking directly into the dark slits of the mask. "I can't say how I feel? I know you have your plans to fulfill. I wouldn't want you to give that up. I wouldn't let you. I'd never get in the way, V."

"You're making this difficult, Evey," he said.

"Really?" I said. "You wouldn't ever give up on your revolution. You are much too determined."

"I am still human, Evey," he said. His gloved hand reached up to my cheek and he brushed it lightly. "And 'If I could write the beauty of your eyes

And in fresh numbers number all your graces,

The age to come would say 'This poet lies:

Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces.'"

Shakespeare again. Damn him. The water arose in my eyes. He stepped away from me and took my hand. "You are too persuasive Evey," he said. "You'll have to forgive me. I'll have to keep you from saying anything else."

I sighed and lowered my head.

He tilted it back up so I would look at him. "There isn't much time," he said.

That was the last night we spent together. I didn't know it then. I would have refused going down there, to the underground, if I had known. I would have tried to run away. But who am I fooling? I would have followed him to death easily. Perhaps that's why he did not tell me what he was doing.

"Where are you going?" I said as he headed down towards the end of the tunnel.

"I am going to meet my maker and to pay him in kind for all he's done."

"No, wait," I said, running after him. I couldn't believe this. It couldn't truly have to come down to this: to sacrificing his life for a cause. Wasn't there always another answer? Another way? "You don't have to do this. You could leave this here, we could run away together."

"No," he said. "You were right about me. All that I want, all that I deserve is at the end of that tunnel."

I shook my head defiantly. "That's not true." And, without hesitation, I cupped his head in my hands and leaned in to press my lips against the cold, hard plastic lips of his mask. I could hear a low murmur of pleasure escape his lips as I held mine there and my heart felt like it had been dropped on the floor. He couldn't leave me. Not when he knew now that I loved him. We were meant for each other. After I finally drew back, he looked at me for the longest time and with the greatest strength, he sighed and let go of my hand.

"I can't," he said. And he turned to head into the tunnel.

"V!" I called out. He stopped, but did not look back at me. "I love you. More than anything else in this world. I always have. I thought about you every day. You're everything, V. There will only be you. I don't care if you never fully believe it, or if you think that you're not good enough… I love you. With all my heart. I love you."

He stood there, motionless and then he turned to look back at me.

"I'm coming back," he said.

I sighed in relief. There was complete assurance in his voice. I knew I would see him again, if only for one last time.

He had to risk his life in order to make sure our world had a future. This is what he believed, and even though I didn't like it, I could not judge what the future would have been had he failed in his quest for justice and truth. There are some things that are greater than just two people and this was what he was working towards for over 20 years. I had to respect this.

I heard in a song once that love is watching someone die. I had never loved anyone like I loved V. He died in my arms that night. It seemed melodramatic and like something out of our beloved Shakespeare, but there he was, drenched in blood and nearly collapsing on the ground before I reached him. But he had gotten back to me. My V had made it back to me, like he said he would. I struggled to remain calm. I had time to prepare for this, but I was not used to seeing him so weak and fragile. He clung to me like he was slipping beneath the water, about to drown. The tears quickly welled up in my eyes.

"Oh don't," he said. "I can't bear to see you like that. It's just me. It is my time. I'm finished."

"Don't say that," I said. "And what do you expect from me? I'm not a stone."

"Only truth, Evey," he said. I could tell each word he spoke caused him immense pain. "In these last precious moments, I want to tell you only truth. And the truth is, for 20 years I saw only this day. Nothing else mattered. Until I saw you. Then everything changed. I fell in love with you Evey, like I had no longer believed I could."

The tears spilled over and splashed down upon his chest.

"V…" I said. "Don't leave me, please. You have to make it through this."

"I loved you the minute I saw you, Evey," he said. "But I never expected you to return it. I didn't dare to hope… until you told me yourself."

"Please…," I said, clinging to him, but knowing that he was slipping away fast. Not all the prayers in the world could keep him there with me. He was leaving.

"It's… the most beautiful thing," he said, his voice straining. "You could have given me."

He exhaled his last breath and I knew he was gone. His body went limp on the ground and the last light beneath the mask dimmed as the curtains closed. For 20 years, this incredible man, the man I loved, had lived, breathed, slept and dreamed alone. For 20 years he had only himself. I had but a few moments with him. Brief, but powerful moments that I will never forget. And now, my V lay dead on the platform of B12 in the underground. And I had watched him go. He had not died alone.


End file.
